Throughout history, the stories of women's lives and work have been overshadowed by those of men. Wives, especially, disappear. Author Nicola Pierce introduces her new book, Great Irish Wives, which tells the stories of 10 truly remarkable women, from Matilda Tone and Mary O'Connell to Emily Shackleton and Beatrice Behan.
Just like my history of O'Connell Street, this book is the result of an idea that bubbled up during a sleepless night and I began it just before my fourth wedding anniversary. Previously, I had written about the likes of Daniel O’Connell, W.B. Yeats and George Bernard Shaw, without knowing or even considering if they were married at all.
I decided to choose ten wives because of their husbands – barristers and politicians, activists, playwrights, the artist, the polar explorer – realising that I knew next to nothing about these women.
Perhaps my biggest challenge in writing about the women was the husbands. From time to time, they got in my way, their outsized personalities matching their extraordinary ambitions and achievements.
Each woman was remarkable in her own way. One could argue that Constance Wilde’s achievements, as a writer and fashion icon, were on a par with her husband’s while Charlotte Shaw literally rescued her husband from poverty before setting him on the road to stardom, discreetly providing him with subjects to write about and the security to do so without interruption.
In becoming a wife, Sinéad de Valera gave up two careers; she was an award-winning teacher whose work on the stage had impressed the likes of W.B. Yeats and George Moore. For the bulk of her children’s childhood, she parented alone, keeping them safe during the Easter Rising, the War of Independence, the Civil War and the Spanish flu. In later years, she dedicated herself to writing.
By the time I finished this book, I was a widow, just like Matilda Tone, Emily Shackleton, Margaret Clarke, George Yeats and Beatrice Behan, and I found myself in awe of these women all over again. Each had had to soldier on, looking after children, maintaining homes and paying bills whilst ensuring that her husband’s legacy flourished.
The ten husbands have one thing in common: they married well.
Margaret Clarke kept Harry’s studios in production whilst fulfilling commissions for her own artwork and taking care of her three young children. George Yeats was publicly vilified for not bringing William’s body back from France for a big funeral. However, it later transpired that she was fulfilling his wishes to avoid such pomp and ceremony in Ireland.
Several biographers believe that had Brendan Behan not married Beatrice, he might not have written anything after The Quare Fellow.
These women prioritised their husbands’ passions and demons over their own, with only one, Charlotte Shaw, remaining childless. Each wife provided her husband with a home, where he was not only loved and supported, but also sheltered, in mind and body, from mounting pressures brought on by his chosen vocation.
The ten husbands have one thing in common: they married well. The more I unveiled about each wife, the more it became impossible to imagine their husbands’ careers without them.
Read an excerpt from Nicola's chapter on Mary O’Connell, wife of nationalist leader Daniel O’Connell.
If this book is an attempt to pull the wives of Ireland’s famous men out from behind their husbands’ shadows, the story of Mary O’Connell shows a courtship entirely carried out in the shadows for the sake of a promised inheritance.
In 1800, Mary and Daniel struck up a secret correspondence, shortly after which he proposed to her. Her acceptance was, initially, for his eyes and ears only.
The reason for the secrecy was money. Daniel stood to inherit a fortune from wealthy Uncle Maurice, known in the family as Hunting Cap, for whom a dowry-less bride would have been unacceptable, and who was capable of punishing a wayward nephew by disinheriting him. While Daniel was determined to marry the woman he loved, he was equally determined not to forfeit the riches that would someday be his.
In Daniel’s earliest surviving letter to Mary, he wrote: 'You know as well as I do how much we have at stake in keeping the business secret. I have certainly more at stake than ever I had before, or I really believe if I fail at present I shall ever have again. Secrecy is therefore a favour I earnestly beg of you.’
Of course, nothing could be achieved without Mary’s full cooperation and, so, she said yes to all.
For the next two years, their mutual friend, another Daniel O’Connell, nicknamed Splinter, was charged with sending letters between the couple, but Splinter sometimes went missing just when he was needed. Also, Mary’s brother Rickard grew concerned over the number of letters his unmarried sister was receiving from Splinter and felt morally obliged to open one whereupon he discovered the existence of another Daniel O’Connell entirely. We can assume that Rickard kicked up a patriarchal fuss about impropriety until Ellen, his mother, told him that she had read all the letters and found nothing untoward in them. His mother was lying out of loyalty to Daniel who had confessed all to her in a letter. Whilst appreciating being included in the secret, Ellen urged Daniel to stop writing to Mary as it was causing trouble with her brother but this he could not do. Instead, he changed tack and sent Mary an impersonal letter about a lottery ticket – and nothing else – enabling her to read it aloud without causing Rickard any discomfort.
In want of a better courier, Daniel told his friend, James, Mary’s brother-in-law, about their engagement and entrusted him with sending their letters. This meant that Mary would receive letters from Daniel in an envelope addressed by James, which was well and good until one was delivered while his wife was visiting her sister. Recognising the familiar handwriting, Betsey imagined that her husband must be hiding a serious illness from her, thus forcing Mary to confess all. Now there were four who knew of the clandestine relationship. Since the whole point of all of this was to keep his uncle in the dark, it must have been worrying as the number of people who knew of the couple’s attachment increased, but Daniel obviously felt it was worth the risk. In any case, it ended in marriage, albeit a secret one.
Great Irish Wives by Nicola Pierce is in bookshops 8th September, published by The O’Brien Press
